


Short Landings

by Nimgrade



Category: BoJack Horseman
Genre: Aromantic, Asexual Relationship, F/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Relationship Discussions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:07:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29073057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nimgrade/pseuds/Nimgrade
Summary: Voicing their love for one another was the beginning of things. Now they’re free to feel and honor and grow that love, without having to categorize it any further.But she still craves specificity. Because she’s in uncharted emotional territory, and Judah is all too graciously refusing to set her back on track.
Relationships: Princess Carolyn/Judah Mannowdog
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	Short Landings

**Author's Note:**

> Happy almost-anniversary to the Bojack Horseman finale! 
> 
> If any TV show is suited to punny ship names, it’s this one, yet no one seems to be taking advantage. I came up with “MannowCat” last year and still haven’t seen anyone else derive it independently, so… I’m staking my claim. Please enjoy some queerplatonic MannowCat.

A new air of serenity has settled over Princess Carolyn’s office. She could feel it on her whiskers as soon as she walked in this morning, but especially once she and Judah sat down together, sipping their respective coffee and tea from matching mugs, to begin the day’s work. Each time she looks up from the financial spreadsheets on her computer screen, he’s in her line of sight. Her partner in more ways than one, now.

Whatever happens with this new film production project they’ve embarked on, Judah will be there, as invaluable and unflappable as ever. They balance each other like a universal law, the steady weight of his focused work ethic lending momentum to her driving energy.

If the physics are a little muddled, she blames the new emotions thrown into the equation.

The evening before, she'd accepted the offering of his love with a quiet, fond smile, but no words of her own. But there's no reason to keep him waiting, is there?

So she treats him to a Thai lunch, and insists on a moratorium on industry talk for thirty minutes. The time flies by: while this place serves excellent food in reasonable portions, she and Judah are so engaged in conversation that, by the end, they both have to box up more than they ate. 

As Princess Carolyn tucks away her credit card, she says, “And Judah?”

“Yes?”

“Just because I haven’t said it out loud yet—I love you, too.”

He gives her a small smile that lifts his beard in the way she finds so endearing. “I’m glad to hear it.”

They regard each other, content, across the small table. Princess Carolyn indulges herself a few more seconds of eye contact before pushing out her chair. “Shall we get back to work?”

Later in the week, she invites him to her apartment for a change of scenery. He carefully leans his bicycle against the wall behind the door and joins her on the couch for a few minutes before Todd, off official babysitting duty but available to help, comes to collect Ruthie.

Princess Carolyn gives her daughter a kiss on her spiny forehead as she secures a buckle around her. “Okay, sweetie, enjoy your stroll around the park with Uncle Todd.”

“Now hold on just a minute,” Todd says, adopting his presentational voice. “There may be a stroller involved, but this is not just a stroll. It’s a constitutional.”

“Is that so?” She returns to the sofa to top off her and Judah’s glasses of sparkling cider.

“Yep! Although—” Todd peers down over the hood at Ruthie— “for you it's a consti- _tush_ -ional, because you get to just sit on your tush, while I push.”

Ruthie erupts into giggles, bringing a smile to Princess Carolyn's own face.

“She really loves all forms of wordplay,” she remarks. “I think her verbal skills are going to be off the charts before we even know it. Thanks, Todd.”

“You're welcome!” he calls as he rolls Ruthie down the hall.

Princess Carolyn sits back in contentment, idly swirling the cider in her glass. 

“You're an excellent mother, you know.”

She blinks at Judah. He continues to look at her matter-of-factly. It's a given that he wouldn't say anything he didn't believe to be both true and worthy of expression. That blunt honesty overrides her natural urge to dismiss the compliment.

“I am, aren't I?” She smiles. “It was rough at the beginning, but… I think I'm really getting a handle on all of this.” Shouldering responsibility for other people's lives, careers, and well-being isn't new, but usually she only carries that burden for as long as it takes to shove it back onto its rightful owner. Parenthood promises to be a much more gradual unloading, over the course of many years, and she suspects that by the end of it she'll have to fight herself to let go.

But, she tells Judah, having Todd around to babysit has been an unbelievable help, a true godsend. “He'd probably call himself a Toddsend,” she amends.

“Does that make him both the sender and the thing sent?”

She frowns. “Well, he did walk over here instead of stowing away in someone's backseat, so… yes?”

They chuckle easily together.

“In any event, he seems very… enterprising nowadays.”

“Oh, yes. I mean, Todd’s always been full of kooky business ideas, but he’s really applying himself to this daycare thing.” She hesitates, unsure whether to share this next part, but goes for it anyway. “And you know, that’s not even his only project at the moment. He and his friend developed an asexual dating app that’s been gaining some traffic.”

“That certainly fills a niche,” Judah says, nodding.

She looks at him, and flexes her claws against the couch cushion restlessly. “Judah… could I ask you a question? A very personal question?”

“Of course.” He sets down his glass. “Princess Carolyn, we’ve worked together intimately for years; no question is too personal. I have no secrets from you.”

“Last week, I didn’t know you were in a band,” she points out.

“True. But you do now. Is that the subject of your question?”

“Your band? No.” She exhales a laugh, still nervous. “If you really don’t mind me asking… how do you feel about sex? Just in general?”

His brow furrows a little in thought. “Well… I don’t feel strongly about it. It’s much less of a pressing concern in my life than I was conditioned to expect. But on the few occasions that I’ve engaged in sexual activity with others, I’ve found it pleasant enough.”

She lets herself relax against the couch, hand no longer clenching.

“You look relieved,” Judah observes. “Is that close to the answer you were hoping for?”

She shakes her head slowly. “Any answer would have been fine. Nothing’s going to change my feelings for you. But…” A sigh escapes her. “The particulars of those feelings are what I find confusing.”

“I can attempt to sort through them with you.”

“I appreciate that.” She faces him with the slightest residual wariness. “So… you wouldn’t necessarily be disappointed if sex weren’t part of the equation, in our relationship?”

“Disappointed? Certainly not,” he says. “If that’s your preference; if you’re not attracted to me in that way—”

The fur on her cheeks prickles. “Oh, but that feels horrible to admit!”

“How so?”

“It feels like an insult to you. To your appearance. Like that time I told you to shave your beard, because it made you look homeless?” She shudders. “Talk about insensitive. I still feel awful about that.”

“You rescinded the demand almost immediately, I recall. You then told me I was… perfect.”

Princess Carolyn smiles. “Did I? Huh. Well, I got it right the second time, then. You’re wonderful, and you look wonderful. But now, I just—and ugh, I can’t even blame it on postnatal hormone weirdness, because I didn’t physically give birth to Ruthie—”

“I’m not insulted,” he cuts in, placing a hand on hers to quell her phantom clawing. “You said you love me. I don’t need any specific proof or demonstration beyond that.”

She nods. “And I wouldn’t have said so if I weren’t one hundred percent confident that I do. But… I’m not sure if those words, directed at you, mean the same thing they did the last time I said them to a man.”

“I wouldn’t expect them to,” he shrugs. “I imagine that man is very different from me.”

“No need to imagine. You’ve met Ralph; you set us up in the first place.”

“Ah.” His eyes flick up to the ceiling. “Yes, he and I differ in many respects.”

Princess Carolyn rolls the stem of her glass between her fingers. “I do wonder,” she starts to say, only realizing where her thoughts lead as she voices them, “if I would have felt such a strong sexual chemistry with him—or any at all, really—if I hadn’t been so desperate to conceive at the time.”

“Hmm.”

“I’m sorry, there’s no way you want to hear this.”

“I do,” he says. “Personally, I don’t devote much thought to the hypothetical directions my life could have taken, so it’s novel and illuminating to hear those speculations from others.” His fingers, still resting on hers, curl gently to stroke them. “Especially from you.”

“All right, well…” She sits back. “I don’t have much more to say about it. All I know for sure is that Ralph and I found our connection by looking past the physical—refusing to play the cat-and-mouse game. He’s nice, and sort of… calmly witty, in a greeting-card kind of way. I think he would have made a great dad if my body had decided to cooperate.” She shakes her head. “But enough of that. I’m glad to be with you, even if…”

“Even if…?” Judah prompts gently.

“Even if I don’t feel sexually attracted to you,” she forces out, “in the way I feel I should.”

“I’m glad, too.”

On impulse, she leans in to kiss him on the cheek, at the corner of his mouth. His beard tickles her whiskers, sending sparks of affection through her, and as she pulls back she sees that same corner lifting in a smile. It’s all she wants to look at for the rest of the afternoon.

It’s _all_ she wants.

“Oh, fish,” she blurts out.

Judah’s finger brushes the juncture of his lips. “Is something wrong?”

Once again, nothing feels _wrong_. But what she’s feeling feels like it can’t be right.

She looks at him and sees everything that they can do for each other, each brick they can lay toward the construction of a more interconnected, interdependent life. She sees plenty of opportunities for brief kisses like the one just now, to communicate thanks or reassurance or simple affection. But there’s no heat, no desperate yearning, no spike in her nerves over how and when to define the nature of their relationship. It’s fine: they’ve already voiced their love for one another, and that was the beginning of things. Now they’re free to feel and honor and grow that love without having to categorize it any further.

But she still needs the specificity. Because she’s in uncharted emotional territory, and Judah is all too graciously refusing to set her back on track.

“I think…” She drapes herself backward over the arm of the sofa, training her gaze on the ceiling rather than him. “Whatever you want to call my feelings for you—as strong as they are, somehow I don’t think they’re romantic, either.”

With barely a pause for thought, he says, “Once again, I’ll let you know that I find that perfectly acceptable.”

They’re really doing this, then. Princess Carolyn massages her forehead. “You know what? This isn’t even new for me. I was trying to convince myself that it was… but this happened with another ex-boyfriend, only I didn’t realize it at the time because I was so preoccupied with breaking free of Bojack’s hold on my social life. That guy, Vincent? I met him at a bar and started chatting him up, and that was that. I enjoyed his company, sure, and his maturity was a welcome contrast to what I’d been putting up with, but… physically, emotionally, I wasn’t attracted to him at all! And I never noticed!” She shakes her head as she straightens up. “I guess I also overlooked it because he made his limits clear right off the bat. Said that kissing was, and I quote, ‘yucky.’”

“He wasn’t wrong,” Judah notes. “Millions of bacteria are transferred between mouths at a remarkable rate.” He glances at her. “I’m sorry, should I not have mentioned that so soon after you kissed me? Your gesture was on skin, not a mucous membrane, so the numbers should be drastically reduced.”

Princess Carolyn laughs quietly. “I really do love you,” she says, looking at her lap but sparing a glance in his direction. “Though I’ll have to give some thought to the mucous membranes.”

“May I offer a suggestion?”

“Of course.”

“Perhaps, instead of detailing everything we do and don’t feel for each other, which is clearly causing you undue distress… we could compile a more productive list.”

She agrees. That afternoon, their list of displays of affection remains short: holding hands is nice, as is kissing on the cheek. After Todd returns with Ruthie, from what is now apparently a Todd-sti-Ruthie-nal (“Pushing it a little too far,” she informs him; he responds by promising to take one fewer lap around the park next time), she and Judah table the discussion. Over the next few weeks, though, more items find their way into the repertoire. Some are physical interactions—she nearly falls asleep the first time he strokes her head—and some are more abstract expressions of intimacy. Staying the night; cooking meals together; testing out unfinished song ideas; taking an increasingly egalitarian approach to raising Ruthie, whose fourth word is “Dudah”… it all quickly coalesces into a firm foundation of trust.

A month into their partnership, they decide that kissing on the lips, however unhygienic, is acceptable in moderation.

Around the six-month mark, they stand together at the sink after dinner: appropriately, a homemade version of their orders at the Thai restaurant, choo-chee shrimp with grilled tofu salad and peanut sauce. Judah rinses off and passes her the last dish; Princess Carolyn’s towel-clad hands work while her mind wanders. It’s nice, she thinks, having someone to mutually lean against, exchanging and sharing responsibilities without a thought. After spending decades of her life along an ambitious, sometimes exhausting trajectory, she’s shocked by the gratifying ease of landing just short of normalcy—but on her feet all the same, the ground here more solid than she would have thought possible. Though the two of them don’t quite fit the definitions, together they’ve built something distinct but recognizable. Maybe it’s time they had it recognized.

She adds the dry plate to the stack, frowns into the distance, and says, “Marriage?”

Judah replies, “I don’t see why not.”

They hold the reception on a warm, clear night after the publicity wedding. She doesn’t mind the assumptions; on the contrary, she revels in this one opportunity to occupy the center of a storm of highly inaccurate, perfectly harmless gossip. In response to a few playful nudges about what she and Judah will be doing later tonight, she offers only an ambiguous smile—which threatens to bloom into a whisker-scrunching grin when she thinks about their usual bedtime position, holding hands as they fall asleep side-by-side. She withdraws to the hors d’oeuvres table to blink away happy tears.

For half an hour, she lets herself lose track of her new husband in favor of encountering an old friend and reminiscing about other forms of love. There have been so many, after all, and there is so much more to come.


End file.
